All About Frugalcrib

Hi there and welcome! We are Mr. and Mrs. Frugalcrib, coming to you live from sunny Florida. We’re two scientists in our early 30’s who are passionate about personal finance, frugality, and starting a family here in paradise.

After moving around a lot, we’ve finally settled down in a beautiful home a stone’s throw away from the beach. If you can throw a stone 3 miles that is. But it’s just a quick ride to the beach, and that’s good enough for us!

We started this blog in November 2017 in order to document our personal finance and family planning journey. We lead a happy life through frugality, not by overspending and being wasteful. The concept of frugality and personal finance is something we’re passionate about and is a big part of what we do.

The Frugalcribs

Financial Freedom

Financial Freedom can mean a lot of things to different people. We see it as reaching a point in life where you have the freedom to choose. When you have the option to take a sabbatical, switch to a less lucrative career, cut back on your hours drastically, or even quit your job altogether, that’s when you have Financial Freedom. The freedom to choose to not work (as much) for your money, or the freedom to keep going. It doesn’t even matter. It’s the fact that you can choose that makes it liberating.

Now I can hear you thinking “That all sounds great, but I don’t make a lot of money”. Well, neither do we. It’s pretty straightforward really, all you need are a few simple ingredients and a bit of perseverance (or stubbornness!):

Save and invest a considerable amount of your income. The higher your savings rate, the faster you reach financial freedom.

Learn to live a good life on the rest of your income. The lower the amount you need each year, the faster you reach your goal.

Do this until your total investments are ~25 times higher than what you spend in a year.

And then you’re basically financially free (you can live off of your investments or whatever fun side gigs you can think of)!

Yes. This is a gross oversimplification, but you get the point!

We strive to reach Financial Freedom by living way below our means and saving the rest. Savings and investments will compound, and eventually, after 10+ years, should become enough to sustain us for lifeif we so choose.

Lucky for us, saving comes naturally. We’ve always been frugal, it’s the way we were raised, it’s in our blood. But still, in our eyes, we lead a luxurious life. We love charcuterie, prefer fancy imported cheeses, and eat avocados year round. We also have a pretty cool house and car. But we cook most meals at home (tastes better anyway), travel for free or on the cheap using miles and credit card bonuses, and we realize spending hard earned money on useless junk that clogs up your garage doesn’t really make you happy (minimalism FTW!). Check out our annual spending report to see where we do, and where we don’t, spend money on.

Ask yourself: On your deathbed, would you say “thank goodness I spent all that time working late on my boss’ project”?

Yeah, neither would we.

Our life is not perfect, but let’s be honest, nobody’s life is. We have never bought into a consumerist lifestyle. We value experiences and a simple life much more than stuff. Nothing beats lounging in our lanai (screened in covered porch), sipping on a glass of iced tea while smoking some ribs.

The Family

So far, the “starting a family” part of our journey has been giving us some trouble though. Given that 84% of couples conceive within a year of trying, we figured we’d be well underway by now!

Turns out, we’re part of the 16%. Now, where can I buy a “We are the 16%” bumper sticker?

We are dealing with infertility. You can do two things (1) decide “well, being a parent wasn’t for me anyway”, or (2) just go for it. Modern science gave us the opportunity to do something about it. Use it!

We didn’t plan to have to deal with infertility, but alas, here we are. Whatever happens, happens. We’re gonna make the best of our IVF journey, and we’ll document it all through infertility and beyond! (#infertilityhumorfail)

Putting Two and Two Together

It’s not easy getting (objective) information about the quality of IVF treatments. Fertility clinics can sometimes be… how do I put this.. not completely straightforward about their success rates. Treatment in the US is also downright expensive! Paying upwards of $15.000-$20.000 for an at best 40% shot to get pregnant doesn’t sound very enticing.

Remember I told you we are both scientists?

We want to shine a light on everything surrounding IVF. That includes seeing what the actual evidence says about different treatments, drugs, and the odds of success.

Remember I told you we are both cheap-skates into personal finance and frugality?

For starters, the cost of IVF can put a huge dent in anyone’s budget. Combine this with us not minding going at it the unconventional way, and… we’ve decided to explore the world of medical tourism by getting IVF treatment abroad. Trust me, we didn’t make this decision lightly. It took a lot of research!

We ended up going to Prague (Czech Republic, Europe) for our treatment and spent a grand total of $3,981 on IVF, including medication, just a fraction of what we would have paid in the US. Please check out our IVF diary if you’re interested in all the specifics.

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Welcome to the world of blogging! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

The Mrs. and I will be in Florida in mid-June. We’ll be visiting with friends, hopefully watching a SpaceX launch and then taking a short cruise to Cuba. If the timing and location (we’re still figuring out where we’ll be) works, shoot me a note if you’re interested in meeting up with crazy people from the internet! https://www.1500days.com/contact/